> OpenBSD and Solaris 10 are very close to this > goal, yet they still remain niche OS's to the > masses. It will take what you suggest AND the > ease of installing OS X or Windows XP for the > masses to adopt.
It's nothing to do with ease of installing. The majority of users never install an OS.
What they need to do is to start getting pre-built hardware sold with the OS installed. Get a lower spec machine (cancelled out by BeOS's higher performance), stick a decent office suite on there with fileformat compatibility with MS then sell them in bulk to officework firms. Use the lack of app support as a selling point ("includes security technology preventing the installation of 99% of games and other unauthorised software!").
It sounds reasonable, but think about the consquences.
By that logic, for instance, ANYBODY who is working in a non-state job, and who criticises global capitalism, should be instantly fired. After all, all businesses operate based on capitalism.
Just because a business produces IP doesn't mean that anyone who criticises copyright is against their business model. If copyright was abolished, it might get replaced with something else that would let those businesses still make money. What would that be? We don't know, it's not invented yet, but there again, we aren't in any danger of actually abolishing copyright right now, are we?
So does this mean that in future, adverts for iPods or similar - instead of just showing someone downloading a load of music to their iPod - will have to show them getting out their credit card and paying for the music, to make it apparant that they're doing it legally?
"Creating creative works" is now, for most people, something that other people do.
It doesn't have to be. If the cost of bringing creative works to market was reduced, and the level of lock-in on mainstream supply chains was reduced, then everyone could get in on the idea of being rewarded for their creativity, and copyright would be far more respected.
And don't say "most people are just not going to be talented enough". There is *plenty* of stuff out there that is of high quality but being lost because of the high cost of marketing.
Well, of course, you *can't* name one - because they failed, and failed people don't become famous.
The original poster is correct. For just about any "discouraged" behaviour, you'll be able to find some guy somewhere who succeeded by doing it. Like, Tommy Cooper first succeeded because he screwed up in a stage act and poured water all over himself. Does that mean that anyone else who wants to become a celebrity should do the same thing?
Yes, it's true that you don't necessarily need a degree to succeed. But having one will give you a good safety net if you don't. So unless the business opportunity is going to be gone in 3 years (note: I acknowledge that, in IT, this is perfectly possible) there's no reason to drop out for it.
> So if someone is prepared to work hard you put > it in the same category as someone with rich > parents? Yes, work ethic is only granted to > the priveleged few, all the rest of us poor > mortals should just be paid by the government > because we do not want to work.
Umm.. well, actually, yes, there IS an argument that way. Why would anyone ever choose to be lazy? The only argument is that they don't, and being hardworking is just another in-born personality trait, just like being good at music or being good looking.
But it's irrelevant, because hard work isn't that much to do with success. Sure, NOT working hard will mean you probably fail, but it's certainly not true to say that working hard will make you succeed. If you doubt that, go ask a farmer, who works 14-16 hour days producing a good that everybody in the country needs and wants and yet gets paid a pittance.
And, btw, wanna know what happened to Unity?..
on
The Xbox 360 Unveiled
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The music visualiser in the Xbox 360 is being done by Jeff Minter, as a massively enhanced version of the engine that was going to drive Unity.;)
> You think Graham's wrong because you've > overlooked or given little value to his > statement, "...If they get something wrong, > it's usually not realizing they have to make > something people want.". Marketing can be > important, but you have to have a product that > people want or need in the first place. And > the biggest mistake most people make, is in > thinking that they can persuade people to NEED > their product by throwing a ton of money into > advertising/marketing.
But it's equally fallacious to assume that, just because you make a product that people want, people will buy it.
People just don't look around for new products anymore. If they did, it would be great for everyone, but they don't. Heck, I'd like to see a world where customers had, before buying anything, to sit an exam to prove that they had actually analyzed the market and worked out that it was the best value product for their needs. Technically that's supposed to be what they're doing anyway, as that's the basis under which capitalism is supposed to work.
Conspiracy theorists can have a good run on this too. Companies increase employees' work hours, thus leaving them without time to study their own consumption, thus meaning that to be as quick as possible they have to buy from the obvious sources, thus meaning they buy from the firms with the big marketing budgets, thus meaning they buy from the big firms, which are also the firms who are setting the working hours for larger numbers of employees.
How about the statement made by Sony, which ought to be held up as a proof of the death of true capitalism: "We don't make things that people want. It's far cheaper to make people want the stuff we make."
Want an example? A local game store was selling Pokemon cards. They were selling like crazy - from the store in the big mall opposite, which was selling them for twice the price of the local store. The local store had trouble clearing one box - and it was practically opposite the exit of the big mall (well, to be fair it was in an arcade, so not immediately visible from the street). If any customer had just thought, "Ok, I'll spent 5 minutes just walking around the town and seeing what might be here that I didn't know about", they'd have spotted it. But nobody did. Because people don't do that anymore.
So yes, you have [i]got[/i] to market. Unfortunately, the big firms have an unlimited desire for marketing and bigger budgets than you...
> I cannot understand why anyone on this site > does not like what he has to say. He's sayingb > the time has never been better to start a > business, keep your costs low and make better > technology your advantage, and he's entirely > encouraging with his style of presentation.
Because, to be blunt, he knows not everyone can succeed.
HE managed it. Good for him. But he knows that it simply isn't possible for everyone to do so, yet his essay doesn't allow for this. It's encouraging about something that, realistically, there is absolutely no reason to be encouraging about.
The claim about working hard is pretty much overrated. It's true that if you don't work hard you will probably fail, but that doesn't mean that if you do work hard you will probably succeed. You'll probably fail anyway for other reasons. Working hard just lets you get to those other reasons. Is it worth the work?
> The point is that you don't need to raise > millions of dollars. $10,000 is a trivial > amount of money in the grand scheme of things > -- it is not impossible to come by if you > think your ideas and your people are worth it. > If you don't think they're worth it, then why > bother?
The problem is that you need money coming [i]in[/i] to pay the food and rent. And you need to pay back any student loan you had - I don't know about the US, but in the UK every undergraduate student is pretty much forced to have a student loan.
If you don't have money coming [i]in[/i] then any expenditure is significant because, after all, you have a lump sum of savings that has to last you for as long as it takes to get money coming in, and every dollar (or pound) could count for a half-day.
I did once see a postgraduate student talking with his supervisor about his PhD. The student had taken a job at a broadcasting firm, and the supervisor was trying to persuade him to take time off the job to finish writing up. "Yes, you'll lose money now, but when you get your PhD, you'll be able to get a higher salary and make it back," said the supervisor. "Yes," said the student, "but the rent bill is there right now!"
It's remarkable that it took several more rounds of arguing for the supervisor to see the point..
> Nothing gives you the right to violate or > invalidate the hard work of others! Don't like > it? Tough!
But this is, I think, exactly the point that's sticking in the craw of many people here.
Yes, I actually agree that legally Jared was in the wrong, and he really should have seen this coming.
But based on the abstract principle above, it certainly looks like Jared wasn't violating or invalidating any of Hasbro's hard work (since Hasbro hadn't tried to produce an online Scrabble game), AND, now they are violating and invalidating his, by making it so that he can be penalised by the law for having done the work to set up a web site that gave people something they wanted.
> I respect their right to choose their own > terms. It's a question of fair play - how > could I possibly demand protection for my own > rights, if I'm not prepared to afford that > same protection to others?
The point I was trying to make is that - as far as I can tell - nobody is doubting the need for and value of copyright and other IP-related law. The problem is a) the draconion measures being employed to enforce it (eg, DMCA), and b) the corporate slant with which it is being developed and interpreted ("copy protection clubs", submarine patents, machine-gun patents, etc.).
Hatch didn't just argue that copyright should be kept strong. He argued that the computers of people violating copyright should be destroyed. That's a whole different issue.
> Could someone tell me what the essential > difference is between someone violating the > license terms on a copyrighted work released > under a GPL license, and someone violating the > terms under which a CD is released by (for > example) Sony?
The differenc:
GPL programs don't come with encumbered software that will secretly install itself on your machine to ensure that you keep the GPL, and will post your personal data to the owner of the SourceForge project page, plus any other material that it feels might be related to your breach of the GPL (including any other code that you write, so that the owner can make sure it wasn't derivative of his) and which is capable of shutting down your computer if it determines the GPL has been violated (with no responsibility for it to be *correct* in that determination).
GPL authors don't then, having written that encumbered software, demand legal protection that obliges users to run it on their machine.
GPL authors don't gleefully accept your contribution to a project, and then argue that any code you ever write for the rest of your life must be GPLed because the programming skills you learned while working on the GPL project can only result in code which matches that which is GPLed.
GPL authors don't buy up entire distribution channels, and make exclusive agreements with them, to ensure that you are *forced* to GPL any software you want to write if you ever want it to be noticed, and even then they can still veto anything they don't want published for any reason.
> The game community needs to get back to basics > and remember that games were just as fun if > not moreso without the glitz and glam.
Sure, but glitz and glamour *sell*.
I actually agree with the plight of developers, but "hey, let's stop making better consoles so that we can forevermore use the technology limits to excuse games with weaker graphics" isn't the answer.
> Due to the market penetration of Windows, the > EU would come crawling back, begging for > Windows marketing to be reinstated. Maybe the > EU needs to be made aware of the fact that not > all of the world falls under their > sovereignty. > My basic point is that, as an American, why > should we give a flying flip what the EU > wants?! It's not like they really have any > enforcement powers beyond their member's > borders...
Well, no. But if Microsoft did try to pull Windows from Europe, they'd just give Linux a massive base, and convert all the EU software houses. In the extreme case, the EU could simply cancel Microsoft's EU copyright and exclude Windows from the Berne Convention, meaning that pirating it would become legal, as would hacking MS's site from the EU to download patches.
>I see you've bought the "GPL is viral" FUD. > Daimaou's code is Daimaou's code. It may be > non-functional without the surrounding GPL > code, but it's his none the less.
This isn't cut-n-dried. Since Daimaou would have developed the code with reference to the GPL code, and it would have influenced the way he wrote it, it's possible it could be considered a derivative work, to which the GPL would spread.
>I dare suggest that better graphics (and better > sound, better physics, faster networks, larger > DVDs and so on) are actually more important > than gameplay innovations.
Maybe some of these are, but let's take a look at the effect - to a developer - of a new console coming out with better graphics:
- Relatively few new gamers, since the entertainment value of the games is still basically the same - Less customers, since not every existing gamer will buy the new console - Small developers are screwed even further since they can't afford to produce media of competitive standard - Large developers are even more stuck since they have to gamble even more money to have a change of developing a competitive title - "Ooo, wow.. they have more ripples in the water now."
> Their defense doesn't appear to be "What we > posted that got him fired was truthful", but > rather that if you allow the lawsuit to > proceed that you could hold anyone responsible > for what they post on the Internet anywhere in > the world.
And I think it's probably overblown and paranoid.
Yea, it means that if a US citizen libels someone in the UK, say, then the UK citizen can sue them *in the UK* because they've suffered damage there. Except it doesn't mean that at all since, after all, what can the UK court do? Put him in prison? He's not in the UK. Make him pay a fine? His money's not in the UK. They'd have to get these things from the US, and the US would refuse.
Now, if it was a UK citizen who libelled a US citizen, this decision would mean they might wind up standing trial under US libel law. Except it doesn't mean that at all, because this has always been the case, not because of this court decision but because of the US's volume of muscle. Just ask that nice Mr Skylarov.
> Atleast of my five favorite bands have 100% > control of the digital distribution of their > music.
How do you know? Have they just said they have? Do they have the right to sell their song, for money, off their own homepage without the involvement of the label?
> All of the artists I listen to regularly have > changed labels at least once to receive better > rights.
Irrelevant: if having the rights is dependant on the label giving them to you, you're not free. (For instance, citizens of a corrupt government that clamps down on speech are not considered to have "free" speech just because they can bribe government officials to ignore them.)
> Someone who signs to a label made a choice.
Just having a choice isn't enough for freedom, because of the problem I cited before: you can choose to commit murder and go to jail, but that doesn't mean you're considered free to murder.
> Your dislike of other peoples' choices with > respect for their rights is a different > argument than why it is wrong for AllofMP3 to > sell things they don't have the rights to.
I'm not disagreeing that AllOfMP3 shouldn't sell the songs. I'm only disagreeing with the view that existing copyright law protects the freedom of artists.
> There is always a copying process involved in > a download, because the song data is being > copied in RAM by the HTTP server in order to > transmit it to you.
Considering this type of transient copy to be infringing is an oddity of US and European copyright law with respect to computers. It is by no means a standard principle.
By the same logic, you make a copy of a book when you read it (on the back of your retina, and in your brain's parsing neurones), you make a copy of a song when you play it off an old-style record player (in the soundwaves in the air and in the pattern of pulses in the cochlea), you make a copy of a CD when you play it (in the decoding firmware), you make a derivative work of an outfit when you wear it (by adding your body to it) etc. etc. etc.
The application of it to computers only was just a hack, paid for in law by big companies who wanted regional lockouts.
Still, very real questions about the legality of this service have to remain... -- Visit http://www.freebiemp3.co.uk/ [freebiemp3.co.uk] for Free iPods in the UK
You're wondering about the legality of the service while hyping a matrix purchase (aka, chain letter) site?
> My right to control the distribution of my > creations always includes my right to sell > that right to someone else. Even someone you > don't think I should, or someone it is a bad > idea for me to sell that right to.
This is a "nature of freedom" argument really. The argument is that you are not free to control distribution because in reality you have only two choices: a) have your work NOT distributed (in which case you get no protection from copyright law, since any copy of your work that does emerge will have been parallel developed), or b) have it distributed - or not - based on someone else's terms (thus, you're no longer in control).
So yes, you have the choice to refuse to sign the contracts (and never have anyone hear your music), but does having that choice make you "free" to control distribution? I don't think so; after all, you have the choice to go and kill someone and then get executed or go to jail, but that doesn't mean you're considered to be "free" to commit murder. Freedom doesn't just require that you can choose an action; the action has to have a reasonable chance of being a good idea too.
Slashdot Mirror
> OpenBSD and Solaris 10 are very close to this
> goal, yet they still remain niche OS's to the
> masses. It will take what you suggest AND the
> ease of installing OS X or Windows XP for the
> masses to adopt.
It's nothing to do with ease of installing. The majority of users never install an OS.
What they need to do is to start getting pre-built hardware sold with the OS installed. Get a lower spec machine (cancelled out by BeOS's higher performance), stick a decent office suite on there with fileformat compatibility with MS then sell them in bulk to officework firms. Use the lack of app support as a selling point ("includes security technology preventing the installation of 99% of games and other unauthorised software!").
It sounds reasonable, but think about the consquences.
By that logic, for instance, ANYBODY who is working in a non-state job, and who criticises global capitalism, should be instantly fired. After all, all businesses operate based on capitalism.
Just because a business produces IP doesn't mean that anyone who criticises copyright is against their business model. If copyright was abolished, it might get replaced with something else that would let those businesses still make money. What would that be? We don't know, it's not invented yet, but there again, we aren't in any danger of actually abolishing copyright right now, are we?
So does this mean that in future, adverts for iPods or similar - instead of just showing someone downloading a load of music to their iPod - will have to show them getting out their credit card and paying for the music, to make it apparant that they're doing it legally?
;)
That'd have been fun in Blade 3
The problem is the market for creative goods.
"Creating creative works" is now, for most people, something that other people do.
It doesn't have to be. If the cost of bringing creative works to market was reduced, and the level of lock-in on mainstream supply chains was reduced, then everyone could get in on the idea of being rewarded for their creativity, and copyright would be far more respected.
And don't say "most people are just not going to be talented enough". There is *plenty* of stuff out there that is of high quality but being lost because of the high cost of marketing.
Well, of course, you *can't* name one - because they failed, and failed people don't become famous.
The original poster is correct. For just about any "discouraged" behaviour, you'll be able to find some guy somewhere who succeeded by doing it. Like, Tommy Cooper first succeeded because he screwed up in a stage act and poured water all over himself. Does that mean that anyone else who wants to become a celebrity should do the same thing?
Yes, it's true that you don't necessarily need a degree to succeed. But having one will give you a good safety net if you don't. So unless the business opportunity is going to be gone in 3 years (note: I acknowledge that, in IT, this is perfectly possible) there's no reason to drop out for it.
> So if someone is prepared to work hard you put
> it in the same category as someone with rich
> parents? Yes, work ethic is only granted to
> the priveleged few, all the rest of us poor
> mortals should just be paid by the government
> because we do not want to work.
Umm.. well, actually, yes, there IS an argument that way. Why would anyone ever choose to be lazy? The only argument is that they don't, and being hardworking is just another in-born personality trait, just like being good at music or being good looking.
But it's irrelevant, because hard work isn't that much to do with success. Sure, NOT working hard will mean you probably fail, but it's certainly not true to say that working hard will make you succeed. If you doubt that, go ask a farmer, who works 14-16 hour days producing a good that everybody in the country needs and wants and yet gets paid a pittance.
The music visualiser in the Xbox 360 is being done by Jeff Minter, as a massively enhanced version of the engine that was going to drive Unity. ;)
> You think Graham's wrong because you've
> overlooked or given little value to his
> statement, "...If they get something wrong,
> it's usually not realizing they have to make
> something people want.". Marketing can be
> important, but you have to have a product that
> people want or need in the first place. And
> the biggest mistake most people make, is in
> thinking that they can persuade people to NEED
> their product by throwing a ton of money into
> advertising/marketing.
But it's equally fallacious to assume that, just because you make a product that people want, people will buy it.
People just don't look around for new products anymore. If they did, it would be great for everyone, but they don't. Heck, I'd like to see a world where customers had, before buying anything, to sit an exam to prove that they had actually analyzed the market and worked out that it was the best value product for their needs. Technically that's supposed to be what they're doing anyway, as that's the basis under which capitalism is supposed to work.
Conspiracy theorists can have a good run on this too. Companies increase employees' work hours, thus leaving them without time to study their own consumption, thus meaning that to be as quick as possible they have to buy from the obvious sources, thus meaning they buy from the firms with the big marketing budgets, thus meaning they buy from the big firms, which are also the firms who are setting the working hours for larger numbers of employees.
How about the statement made by Sony, which ought to be held up as a proof of the death of true capitalism: "We don't make things that people want. It's far cheaper to make people want the stuff we make."
Want an example? A local game store was selling Pokemon cards. They were selling like crazy - from the store in the big mall opposite, which was selling them for twice the price of the local store. The local store had trouble clearing one box - and it was practically opposite the exit of the big mall (well, to be fair it was in an arcade, so not immediately visible from the street). If any customer had just thought, "Ok, I'll spent 5 minutes just walking around the town and seeing what might be here that I didn't know about", they'd have spotted it. But nobody did. Because people don't do that anymore.
So yes, you have [i]got[/i] to market. Unfortunately, the big firms have an unlimited desire for marketing and bigger budgets than you...
> I cannot understand why anyone on this site
> does not like what he has to say. He's sayingb
> the time has never been better to start a
> business, keep your costs low and make better
> technology your advantage, and he's entirely
> encouraging with his style of presentation.
Because, to be blunt, he knows not everyone can succeed.
HE managed it. Good for him. But he knows that it simply isn't possible for everyone to do so, yet his essay doesn't allow for this. It's encouraging about something that, realistically, there is absolutely no reason to be encouraging about.
The claim about working hard is pretty much overrated. It's true that if you don't work hard you will probably fail, but that doesn't mean that if you do work hard you will probably succeed. You'll probably fail anyway for other reasons. Working hard just lets you get to those other reasons. Is it worth the work?
> The point is that you don't need to raise
> millions of dollars. $10,000 is a trivial
> amount of money in the grand scheme of things
> -- it is not impossible to come by if you
> think your ideas and your people are worth it.
> If you don't think they're worth it, then why
> bother?
The problem is that you need money coming [i]in[/i] to pay the food and rent. And you need to pay back any student loan you had - I don't know about the US, but in the UK every undergraduate student is pretty much forced to have a student loan.
If you don't have money coming [i]in[/i] then any expenditure is significant because, after all, you have a lump sum of savings that has to last you for as long as it takes to get money coming in, and every dollar (or pound) could count for a half-day.
I did once see a postgraduate student talking with his supervisor about his PhD. The student had taken a job at a broadcasting firm, and the supervisor was trying to persuade him to take time off the job to finish writing up. "Yes, you'll lose money now, but when you get your PhD, you'll be able to get a higher salary and make it back," said the supervisor. "Yes," said the student, "but the rent bill is there right now!"
It's remarkable that it took several more rounds of arguing for the supervisor to see the point..
> Laws that allow creators to benefit from their
> works.
Except they don't, because to get any benefit the works have to be published, and the publisher can demand the creator hands over all their IP right.
> Laws that mean companies must innovate to
> succeed.
Except they don't. In fact, endlessly extended copyright durations allow companies to squat on the same IP for years.
> Laws that allow people to own ideas that are
> the result of their time.
Except they don't, unless they also didn't have a job at the time.
> Laws that incite people to go over the top at
> Drudge-esque lengths by claiming that
> somebody's going to copyright your DNA.
No, they won't. They'll just copyright (or rather patent) every possible means of reading it.
> Nothing gives you the right to violate or
> invalidate the hard work of others! Don't like
> it? Tough!
But this is, I think, exactly the point that's sticking in the craw of many people here.
Yes, I actually agree that legally Jared was in the wrong, and he really should have seen this coming.
But based on the abstract principle above, it certainly looks like Jared wasn't violating or invalidating any of Hasbro's hard work (since Hasbro hadn't tried to produce an online Scrabble game), AND, now they are violating and invalidating his, by making it so that he can be penalised by the law for having done the work to set up a web site that gave people something they wanted.
That's another part of the problem: that copyright has been taken out of the hands of the "little guy" by locking down distribution.
Now, little guys are rolling up to surrender their copyrights, or any commercial interest in the work, just to get attention paid to it.
> I respect their right to choose their own
> terms. It's a question of fair play - how
> could I possibly demand protection for my own
> rights, if I'm not prepared to afford that
> same protection to others?
The point I was trying to make is that - as far as I can tell - nobody is doubting the need for and value of copyright and other IP-related law. The problem is a) the draconion measures being employed to enforce it (eg, DMCA), and b) the corporate slant with which it is being developed and interpreted ("copy protection clubs", submarine patents, machine-gun patents, etc.).
Hatch didn't just argue that copyright should be kept strong. He argued that the computers of people violating copyright should be destroyed. That's a whole different issue.
> Could someone tell me what the essential
> difference is between someone violating the
> license terms on a copyrighted work released
> under a GPL license, and someone violating the
> terms under which a CD is released by (for
> example) Sony?
The differenc:
GPL programs don't come with encumbered software that will secretly install itself on your machine to ensure that you keep the GPL, and will post your personal data to the owner of the SourceForge project page, plus any other material that it feels might be related to your breach of the GPL (including any other code that you write, so that the owner can make sure it wasn't derivative of his) and which is capable of shutting down your computer if it determines the GPL has been violated (with no responsibility for it to be *correct* in that determination).
GPL authors don't then, having written that encumbered software, demand legal protection that obliges users to run it on their machine.
GPL authors don't gleefully accept your contribution to a project, and then argue that any code you ever write for the rest of your life must be GPLed because the programming skills you learned while working on the GPL project can only result in code which matches that which is GPLed.
GPL authors don't buy up entire distribution channels, and make exclusive agreements with them, to ensure that you are *forced* to GPL any software you want to write if you ever want it to be noticed, and even then they can still veto anything they don't want published for any reason.
> The game community needs to get back to basics
> and remember that games were just as fun if
> not moreso without the glitz and glam.
Sure, but glitz and glamour *sell*.
I actually agree with the plight of developers, but "hey, let's stop making better consoles so that we can forevermore use the technology limits to excuse games with weaker graphics" isn't the answer.
> They already do that. Every gaming-industry ad
> I see requires a minimum of one published
> game. That pretty much filters out new people.
Actually, they say "at least one published title under belt". So they just have a strange dress code..
> Due to the market penetration of Windows, the
> EU would come crawling back, begging for
> Windows marketing to be reinstated. Maybe the
> EU needs to be made aware of the fact that not
> all of the world falls under their
> sovereignty.
> My basic point is that, as an American, why
> should we give a flying flip what the EU
> wants?! It's not like they really have any
> enforcement powers beyond their member's
> borders...
Well, no. But if Microsoft did try to pull Windows from Europe, they'd just give Linux a massive base, and convert all the EU software houses. In the extreme case, the EU could simply cancel Microsoft's EU copyright and exclude Windows from the Berne Convention, meaning that pirating it would become legal, as would hacking MS's site from the EU to download patches.
>I see you've bought the "GPL is viral" FUD.
> Daimaou's code is Daimaou's code. It may be
> non-functional without the surrounding GPL
> code, but it's his none the less.
This isn't cut-n-dried. Since Daimaou would have developed the code with reference to the GPL code, and it would have influenced the way he wrote it, it's possible it could be considered a derivative work, to which the GPL would spread.
>I dare suggest that better graphics (and better
> sound, better physics, faster networks, larger
> DVDs and so on) are actually more important
> than gameplay innovations.
Maybe some of these are, but let's take a look at the effect - to a developer - of a new console coming out with better graphics:
- Relatively few new gamers, since the entertainment value of the games is still basically the same
- Less customers, since not every existing gamer will buy the new console
- Small developers are screwed even further since they can't afford to produce media of competitive standard
- Large developers are even more stuck since they have to gamble even more money to have a change of developing a competitive title
- "Ooo, wow.. they have more ripples in the water now."
> Their defense doesn't appear to be "What we
> posted that got him fired was truthful", but
> rather that if you allow the lawsuit to
> proceed that you could hold anyone responsible
> for what they post on the Internet anywhere in
> the world.
And I think it's probably overblown and paranoid.
Yea, it means that if a US citizen libels someone in the UK, say, then the UK citizen can sue them *in the UK* because they've suffered damage there. Except it doesn't mean that at all since, after all, what can the UK court do? Put him in prison? He's not in the UK. Make him pay a fine? His money's not in the UK. They'd have to get these things from the US, and the US would refuse.
Now, if it was a UK citizen who libelled a US citizen, this decision would mean they might wind up standing trial under US libel law. Except it doesn't mean that at all, because this has always been the case, not because of this court decision but because of the US's volume of muscle. Just ask that nice Mr Skylarov.
> Atleast of my five favorite bands have 100%
> control of the digital distribution of their
> music.
How do you know? Have they just said they have? Do they have the right to sell their song, for money, off their own homepage without the involvement of the label?
> All of the artists I listen to regularly have
> changed labels at least once to receive better
> rights.
Irrelevant: if having the rights is dependant on the label giving them to you, you're not free. (For instance, citizens of a corrupt government that clamps down on speech are not considered to have "free" speech just because they can bribe government officials to ignore them.)
> Someone who signs to a label made a choice.
Just having a choice isn't enough for freedom, because of the problem I cited before: you can choose to commit murder and go to jail, but that doesn't mean you're considered free to murder.
> Your dislike of other peoples' choices with
> respect for their rights is a different
> argument than why it is wrong for AllofMP3 to
> sell things they don't have the rights to.
I'm not disagreeing that AllOfMP3 shouldn't sell the songs. I'm only disagreeing with the view that existing copyright law protects the freedom of artists.
> There is always a copying process involved in
> a download, because the song data is being
> copied in RAM by the HTTP server in order to
> transmit it to you.
Considering this type of transient copy to be infringing is an oddity of US and European copyright law with respect to computers. It is by no means a standard principle.
By the same logic, you make a copy of a book when you read it (on the back of your retina, and in your brain's parsing neurones), you make a copy of a song when you play it off an old-style record player (in the soundwaves in the air and in the pattern of pulses in the cochlea), you make a copy of a CD when you play it (in the decoding firmware), you make a derivative work of an outfit when you wear it (by adding your body to it) etc. etc. etc.
The application of it to computers only was just a hack, paid for in law by big companies who wanted regional lockouts.
Still, very real questions about the legality of this service have to remain...
--
Visit http://www.freebiemp3.co.uk/ [freebiemp3.co.uk] for Free iPods in the UK
You're wondering about the legality of the service while hyping a matrix purchase (aka, chain letter) site?
Pot? Kettle? Black?
> My right to control the distribution of my
> creations always includes my right to sell
> that right to someone else. Even someone you
> don't think I should, or someone it is a bad
> idea for me to sell that right to.
This is a "nature of freedom" argument really. The argument is that you are not free to control distribution because in reality you have only two choices: a) have your work NOT distributed (in which case you get no protection from copyright law, since any copy of your work that does emerge will have been parallel developed), or b) have it distributed - or not - based on someone else's terms (thus, you're no longer in control).
So yes, you have the choice to refuse to sign the contracts (and never have anyone hear your music), but does having that choice make you "free" to control distribution? I don't think so; after all, you have the choice to go and kill someone and then get executed or go to jail, but that doesn't mean you're considered to be "free" to commit murder. Freedom doesn't just require that you can choose an action; the action has to have a reasonable chance of being a good idea too.